Babel: A Failure to Communicate

No film stood a chance against this year's sentimental Oscar favorite, Martin Scorsece's "The Departed," but if any other film was deserving, it was Babel. Tabbed by the Golden Globe for best picture, Babel is a monumental film from the standpoint of creativity as well as social commentary. It picks up where "Crash" left off, demonstrating how a single incident can trigger a chain of events that have life-altering implications for people in all walks of life. Like the 2005 surprise Oscar winner, Babel is a tough film that saves its biggest lessons for its viewers, who are forced to cinsider the sweeping impact of personal choices and how cultural and social barriers can play into those choices. The major difference is that Babel plays out on a world stage, with interrelated events taking place in four countries on three continents.

The film begins inauspiciously with the sale and purchase of a rifle somewhere in what the viewer will likely believe is the Middle East. But contrary to the knee-jerk impressions, the weapon is bought by a goat herder who gives it to his sons to ward off predatory jackals. While testing the range of the weapon, the two brothers fire a shot that is, as the saying goes, heard around the world, when one of the bullets hits a bus carrying a group of tourists and injures a passenger.

Enter storyline two: the wounded passenger is Susan Jones (played by Kate Blanchett), who is on vacation with her husband Richard (Brad Pitt). The couple has been struggling with the sudden death of their infant child and, true to the film's major theme, they have difficulty expressing their remorse, guilt, and the latent blame they feel for one another. Until they suffer the accident, they communicate just as much with their silence as with the words they speak.

After the shooting, the tour bus is detoured to a local village, where Richard calls back home and tries to reach the American embassy for help. With the other passengers hot, uncomfortable and afraid of more gunfire, Richard has to plead with them to wait, but they abandon him at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, the American government is quick to label the shooting a terrorist attack and vows retaliation. For the protection of the two citizens, they cancel the Moroccan ambulance and send in a helicopter, but because of the harsh language between governments, the helicopter is denied entry into Moroccan airspace. Thus, Richard and his wife must endure a harrowing wait as she struggles to hold on until the diplomatic wrangling is sorted out.

Back home in San Diego, the Jones' two children are being tended by Amelia, the family nanny who has lovingly raised them as if they were her own. She was supposed to have the day off to attend her son's wedding in Mexico. With no one to turn to, she decides to take them with her across the border, escorted by her nephew Santiago. But another failure to communicate, this one with the border police, leads the travelers into unexpected trouble.

Across the Pacific in Japan, Chieko is a deaf mute teenager who is still mourning her mother's suicide and craving the attention of her increasingly aloof father. What's more, Chieko is under considerable peer pressure to lose her virginity. Led by an intense desire for human connection, she begins to act out in provocative ways, such as leaving the house without panties, showing her private parts to other boys, and making a pass at her dentist. But at every turn she is rejected, mainly because her deafness renders her unable to truly express what it is she is going through.

Language barriers abound in this masterful series of interconnected tales. Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, English are among the myriad tongues that are spoken, but there are others, including sign language, body language, silence and the ubiquitous voice of authority. Pitt's desperation leads him to express himself in the stereotypical manner of an ugly American, diminishing any sympathy and connection he might otherwise have received from his fellow tourists or the Moroccan police. Law enforcement officers all over the globe wedge a chasm between themselves in their subjects, wielding their authority in ways that cause fear, panic and desperation in those who fall under their scrutiny. Finally, the varying perspectives of the single incident -articulated in Japanese, American and Moroccan news reports- underscore the pervasive confusion that is noted in the film's title.

One of the many points of genius in Babel is that, while it involves clashing cultures and environments (Americans in Morocco, American children in Mexico, a deaf mute girl in a verbal world), the circumstances of all of the characters are frighteningly universal. The two misguided boys who wreak havoc with their gunplay could very well be from any inner city. The nymphish Chieko has been oft seen in films depicting middle America (a la "American Beauty"); the mother doing what she thinks is best for her children at any cost and the married couple struggling to hold on to the remnants of their love are also familiar, both on the screen and in the real world. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga have taken these elements and created a profound and vivid portrayal of the world we live in.